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Friday, June 06, 2003

Sam Jaddalah sent this to me the other day; I have been travelling inGermany, so I haven´t had the chance to check my mail until now.However, this article is well worth taking the time during vacation tosubmit a weblog entry.

Here´s a tantalizing quote:

"There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation.Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the'will of the people' in a global social movement. "

Super power:

"This body has a beautiful mind. Web connections enable a kind ofnear-instantaneous, mass improvisation of activist initiatives. Forexample, the political activist group Moveon.org, which specializes inrapid response campaigns, has an email list of more than two millionmembers. During the 2002 elections, Moveon.org raised more than$700,000 in a few days for a candidate's campaign for the US senate. Ithas raised thousands of dollars for media ads for peace -- and it is nowamassing a worldwide network of media activists dedicated to keepingthe mass media honest by identifying bias and confronting localbroadcasters."

What I find interesting (maybe even extra ordinary) about this isthat is puts people in the same place as huge corporations -- theability to mobilize federal/policatal/legislative bodies in our countrywith the same lever (the only lever?): cash.

Another intersting quote:

"Meta-blogging sites crawl across thousands of blogs, identifyingpopular links, noting emergent topics, and providing an instantaneoussummary of the global consciousness of the second superpower."

To this quote,

"Thus the new superpower demonstrates a new form of 'emergentdemocracy' that differs from the participative democracy of the USgovernment. Where political participation in the United States isexercised mainly through rare exercises of voting, participation in thesecond superpower movement occurs continuously through participation ina variety of web-enabled initiatives."

I would like to add the following: yes it differs, but it alsoprovides a means by which the PEOPLE can become as effectiveparticipants in the legislative and political process as big businessand other powerful key players in government.

This makes me think of some of Frank Herbert's non-Dune science fiction works:

"The symbol of the first superpower is the eagle -- an awesome predatorthat rules from the skies, preying on mice and small animals. Perhapsthe best symbol for the second superpower would be a community of ants.Ants rule from below. And while I may be awed seeing eagles in flight,when ants invade my kitchen they command my attention."

Okay, here he hits the bone I am picking:

"Deliberation in the first superpower is relatively formal -- dictatedby the US constitution and by years of legislation, adjudicating, andprecedent. The realpolitik of decision making in the firstsuperpower -- as opposed to what is taught in civics class -- centers aroundlobbying and campaign contributions by moneyed special interests -- bigoil, the military-industrial complex, big agriculture, and big drugs -- tomention only a few."

Sunday, April 20, 2003

I would like to explore the possible connections between the following:

economics

entropy/thermodynamics

information theory

the conservation of energy

neural networks

Then I would like to see how one could apply findings from theseconnections to management theory, specifically, the management ofnetworks of individuals and networks of networks within and outsideorganizations.

Monday, March 17, 2003

These guys are very interesting - they have a more general approach to what the OBF is trying to do for business. It might be a really good idea to become partners with this organization. Here are some excerpts:

our vision

OneWorld has a vision of equitable and sustainable distribution ofwealth amongst the world's population, underpinned by global attainmentand protection of human rights and by governance structures whichpermit local communities control over their own affairs.

our mission

OneWorld is dedicated to harnessing the democratic potential of theinternet to promote human rights and sustainable development

OneWorld.net values:

* human rights for all as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* sharing the world's natural and economic resources fairly

* simple and sustainable ways of life

* the right of every individual to inform and be informed, with access for all to the benefits of new technology

* participation and transparency in decision-making

* social, cultural and linguistic diversity

OneWorld seeks to respect these values in its operations and governance and to:

* work in a spirit of partnership with organisations with overlapping aims * follow principles of not-for-profit organisations with structures of ownership which are non-beneficial * recognise that rights of access to internet technology should be balanced by responsibilities in its application * avoid any source of finance derived from activities which indisputably conflict with our vision and values

More good info:

our aims

OneWorld aims to be the online media gateway that most effectivelyinforms a global audience about human rights and sustainable development

OneWorld aims to bring together a global community working forsustainable development through interactive online partnerships oforganisations and individuals sharing our vision

OneWorld aims to transcend geographic and linguistic barriers in ourwork; in particular to give a voice to those typically overlooked bymainstream media and policy-makers

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

No, I don't mean Foundry, Cisco, cat5, or lattency - I meanpeople. I mean corporate structure... NEW corporate structure. RohitAnand (a friend of mine who from Techspan who is consulting for PBSright now) and I were jamming about business, project management,application development, and people management the other day. It was areally great brainstorm. In my mind, the pivotal part of theconversation was when we started talking about networks of motivatedpeople doing business.

The idea was that the corporate structure of today tends to crushmany motivated, highly skilled, high-energy individuals. Yet, at thesame time, many of these individuals don't really want to own a companyand all the headaches that come with this. So, what about changing thecorporate hierarchy? What about moving from the bifurcations we see onorg charts to clusters of management like you see in a neural net?

Certainly bears thinking about...

On a semi-side note, this brings be to my favorite business topic:biology. One of my favorite things to do is look at business situationsand imagine a biological/ecological analog. It is my firm beliefe thatin the world of business, we are multi-cellular, though invertibrateorganisms. We have not developed to the point where we are thinking inwholistic, systems terms. We don't think in terms of economies, wethink in terms of CEOs. We still think of the one cell, not all thecells, the organism.

Allen Lerner and I were hanging out the other day, jamming about AdytumSolutions and E-Secure Systems... he was talking about working out, and feeling better about himself - more confident, more
comfortable. As he was describing his self image and the introspection that had led him to want to redefine himself, I got the coolest visual image...

I saw something akin to the super hero transformation that occurs in the time of need: from work-a-day cloths, to flying-out-of-phone-booth tights and cape. Not that I saw Allen in tights, or anything... ;-)

But as that image soaked into my brain, it struck me how well it fit what we do - especially what E-Secure Systems does. We are the techno super-heros; all of us that work in this industry; we're like the Hall of Justice, where uptimes, network security, and customer satisfaction are the law that we support. We really started getting into this, too!

Allen called me later that night, and just went off. I was laughing my ass off. He did this whole improve on internet superheros that was just hysterical - and true.

Allen Lerner of E-Secure Systems and I met with Greg Cangialosiof Blue Sky Factory the other day. These guys are very cool andfriendly. They do internet marketing for companies in all areas ofindustry.

It's nice getting to know Baltimore better; I look forward to futurevisits and growing friendships there. We are talking with Greg nowabout the potential of his contributing some of his knowledge andexperience to the OBF and the OBMN (Open Business Materials Network).

Sunday, March 02, 2003

We've just heard back from Brad DeLong, the economist of UCBerkeley fame. He has most generously agreed to let the OBF re-publishhist works (copyrights his).

This is simply fantastic - his writings and interests are verybroad; his views are well-thought out and innovatitve; and he iswell-respected by his peers not only in the field of economics, but indiverse other fields.

Thank you for this contribution, Dr. DeLong!

We will begin putting some of his previous articles up on thewebsite of the OBF once we move the site further down the betaprocess...

Thursday, February 27, 2003

"People often see in the open source software movement the politicsthat they would lke to see -- a libertarian reverie, a perfectmeritocracy, a utopian 'gift culture' that celebrates an economics ofabundance instead of scarcity, a 'virtual' or electronic existenceproof of communitarian ideals, a political movement aimed at replacingobsolete 19th century capitalist structures with new 'relations ofproduction' more suited to the information age." "No one says thathierarchical coordination is efficient, only that it is lessinefficient than alternatives."

This guy seems to address many of the questions that businessleaders around the world are asking themselves. The quote that BradDeLong has on his site addresses the following:

* Motivation: Why do highly-talented programmers voluntary allocatesome or a substantial portion of their time and mind-space to a jointproject for which they will not be compensated?

* Coordination: How and why do these individuals coordinate their contributions on a single 'focal point'?

* Complexity: Brooks's Law: in software program lines written scalelinearly with the number of programmers, while complexity andvulnerability to mistakes scale geometrically. How does open sourceavoid falling into the trap of Brooks's Law, and the resulting dynamictoward more and more hierarchical forms of organization?

This post is a collection of high-lights from this emailtake from the Topica Email List Directory.

The global economy is in very very very very bad shape. Last yearwhen WEF met here in New York all I heard was, "Yeah, it's bad, butrecovery is right around the corner". This year "recovery" was a wordnever uttered. Fear was palpable -- fear of enormous fiscal hysteria.The watchwords were "deflation", "long term stagnation" and "collapse ofthe dollar". All of this is without war.

US unilateralism is seen as arrogant, bullyish. If the U.S.cannot behave in partnership with its allies -- especially the Europeans-- it risks not only political alliance but BUSINESS, as well. Companyleaders argued that they would rather not have to deal with USgovernment attitudes about all sorts of multilateral treaties (climatechange, intellectual property, rights of children, etc.) -- it's easierto just do business in countries whose governments agree with yours. Andit's cheaper, in the long run, because the regulatory envornments match.War against Iraq is seen as just another example of the unilateralism.

I learned that the US economy is the primary drag on the global economy,and only a handful of nations have sufficient internal growth to thrivewhen the US is stagnating.

Finally, who are these guys? I actually enjoyed a lot of myconversations, and found many of the leaders and rich quite charming andremarkably candid. Some dressed elegantly, no matter how bitter cold andsnowy it was, but most seemed quite happy in ski clothes or casualattire. Women wearing pants was perfectly acceptable, and the elite issufficientlyMulticultural that even the suit and tie lacks a sense of dominance.Watching Bill Clinton address the conference while sitting in the hotelroom of the President of Mozambique -- we were viewing it on closedcircuit TV -- I got juicy blow-by=blow analysis of US foreign policyfrom a remarkably candid head of state. A day spent with Bill Gatesturned out to be fascinating and fun. I found the CEO of Heinekinhilarious, and George Soros proved quite earnest about confronting AIDS.Vicente Fox -- who I had breakfast with -- proved sexy and smart like a--- well, a fox. David Stern (Chair of the NBA) ran up and gave me ahug.

The world isn't run by a clever cabal. It's run by about 5,000bickering, sometimes charming, usually arrogant, mostly male people whoare accustomed to living in either phenomenal wealth, or great personalpower. A few have both. Many of them turn out to be remarkably naive --especially about science and technology. All of them are financiallywise, though their ranks have thinned due to unwise tech-stockinvesting. They pay close heed to politics, though most would be happyif the global political system behaved far more rationally -- better forthe bottom line. They work very hard, attending sessions from dawn tonearly midnight, but expect the standards of intelligence and analysisto be the best available in the entire world. They are impatient. Theyhave a hard time reconciling long term issues (global wearming, AIDSpandemic, resource scarcity) with their daily bottomline foci. They arecomfortable working across languages, cultures and gender, though whitecaucasian males still outnumber all other categories. They adore hi-techgadgets and are glued to their cell phones.

Monday, February 24, 2003

"It is strongest as an economics primer cum publishing memoir,weaving a history of modern economic theory and practice from the eraof Adam Smith onward with some of the author's own experiences in thefield. These experiences include a range of luminaries he has met, workhe has published, speeches he has heard and conferences he hasattended. Dougherty brings us along on the journey and at the same timetakes us back through several centuries of economic and philosophicalprogress: It's not always smooth, not always pretty, but usuallyinteresting and almost always wittily related."

The review finished with:

"those who have heretofore only seen Adam Smith as the cudgel usedby free market ideologues against any and all market intervention willhave been shown an important, under-explored side of his work.

"Dougherty has written an interesting, valuable, and layered bookthat gives us a rich new perspective on Adam Smith and the professionthat he did so much to define."

Friday, February 21, 2003

To the mind of the simple, unsophisticated Shaker it seemsmarvelously inconsistent for any human government to be administeredfor the sole benefit of its own officers and their particular friendsand favorites; or that more than one half the citizens should bedisfranchised because they happen to be females, and compelled by thesword to obey laws they never sanctioned, and ofttimes in which theyhave no faith, and to submit to taxation where there has been noprevious representation; while still millions of other fellow-citizensare treated as property, because they chance to possess adarker-colored skin than their cruel brethren. And again, that themembers (brethren and sisters) of the same religious body or churchshould be divided into rich and poor in the things of this temporaryworld, but who are vainly expecting that, in the world to come, theyshall be willing to have eternal things in common!

And when this same unjust and unequal administration is confirmedand carried out in the most popular religious organizations ofChristendom, the Shakers think the climax of absurdity, tyranny, andoppression well-nigh attained.

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Cohen: "A consumers' republic" is the terminology I employ in AConsumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in PostwarAmerica, for what I discovered was a shared understanding among manyAmericans, beginning right after World War II and lasting into themid-1970s, that the best strategy for reconstructing the nation'seconomy and reaffirming its democratic values lay with promoting theexpansion of mass consumption.

This is very interesting... the energies involved (powered by thedevestating impact of the war on our collective psyche?) in sustainingthat kind of momentum... worth examining. So, it dies out in the 70's;what comes next? The cliche of the 80's greed... then the 90'soportunism... none of this has any sustaining power.

BIG BINGO: I realize that retailers, like other businesses, haveto make decisions that are financially responsible. But I would hopethat my book points out that there are often social, cultural, andpolitical implications of business decisions that those who make themmay not be fully aware of. My hope is that by pointing out some ofthese unexpected ramifications, socially concerned members of thebusiness community may seek remedies or at least think through suchconsequences the next time they face a similar decision.

Yes!!! Exactly!!! I may have to run out and buy this book now...

This interview is extraordinary; the author is amazing - she is socohereant and understandable; clear thoughts and clear explanations.

"Many of my colleagues stepped up their lifestyles and encumberedthemselves with big houses once they began making money," he said. "Forme, it was about being comfortable in my 'hood, investing, anddeveloping relationships with people well before I had launched mybusiness. Start planning early. Save money. And go back to yourcommunity."Feeling profitable, McMillan said, is not only abouteconomics -- it's about earning respect from clients and the businesscommunity at large.

I don't know what I find stranger - that the business world isreaching out into all these different branches of human knowledge andexperience not traditionally associated with business, or that businesshas historically been so divorced from all other aspects of life thatdidn't focus around profits and aquisitions.

This article is ver interesting in that gives a very clear exampleof what seems to be happening more and more: business in search ofmeaning. Earning a living so consumes our lives, and though many seethis as not necessarily possitive, it's not going away anytime soon. Asa result, people are becoming very (deperately?) interested inrevitalizing or redefining bread-winning.

I continue to observe and look forward to each new unfolding in this process...

First and foremost, the reason to start a foundation is to fulfill a philanthropic mission.

Many foundations are set up with the notion that the endowment is tobe permanent. Even small endowments, by providing persistent funding toa cause or charitable organization, can create tremendous publicbenefit over years.

Is there a minimum recommended size?

For a simple, permanently-endowed foundation, many advisors think$500,000 seems to be a practical minimum. This estimate seems to bebased on the assumption that the foundation will hire professionals,and if so, little income will be left over for grantmaking. However,this assumption is simplistic and does not reflect reality.

...the one-two punch of the dot-com implosion and slowing economyhas restored to the industry a sense of level-headedness, emphasis ondue diligence, and realistic expectations.

"Basically we are taking our time and building companies. We're notgoing to ramp product development and teams ahead of customer needs,which is generally what firms have been doing. We're more on theconservative side."

"One of the most important things is the really great people youcan recruit. This was not the case in 1999-2000," Ahn says. Plenty ofsmart, talented people are looking for their next opportunity in awell-back startup. Better yet for entrepreneurs, these execs haverealistic compensation expectations.

The second advantage of this market is access to resources such aslawyers, consultants, and recruiters, all of whom were rather busier ayear ago.

Ahn also steered his own startup, an experience that providedperspective on the life of an entrepreneur. He co-founded and waspresident of Endpoint Technologies Inc., which developed and soldreal-time manufacturing control systems for semiconductor deviceproduction. The company was later acquired by Applied Materials.

"I learned that I didn't know that much, that it's a lot differentdoing it yourself as opposed to coaching someone else. Entrepreneurshipis best left to the professionals."

Today, the best potential markets he is looking at are thosehardware, software, and services helping the transition of businesscommunications from analog to digital, marrying the Internet withvoice, video and real-time communications.

"The new workplace realities have radically changed the wayemployees view the role of work within their lives. No longer doemployees believe in the work covenants of the past. They recognize thenew realities and have adjusted their thinking accordingly. However,most companies continue to operate under the old workplace realitiesand have failed to adjust their thinking or their operations. Just asthe workplace rules have forever changed, so too must the way companiesmeet the new motivational needs of today's employee."

More good stuff:

"The death of lifetime job security has forever changed the wayemployees view the role of work in their lives. The cornerstones of thedream career--a lifetime job guarantee with full retirement benefits inexchange for a lifetime of loyalty to the company--are gone. Jobsecurity is now the ultimate oxymoron. Even the most loyal andcommitted employees understand that their jobs will never again besecure, that a lifetime with any company is extremely rare. Forexample, according to Richard Belous, chief economist of the NationalPlanning Association, 45 million people today are either self-employedor working as temps, part-timers, or consultants.1 That is fullyone-third of the American working population. In Europe, the figure isalready close to 50 percent."

Finally! At the very end of the article, they say this:

* Capture the hearts and minds of all your employees.

* Open communication between all levels of your organization.

* Create partnerships between all employees built upon trust, equality, and sharing.

* Drive learning into every nook and cranny of your company. Emancipatethe action of every employee to increase service and profits.

Now that does justify the title of the article, and I do believe these statements as true.

The credits at the end of the article:

Excerpted from Title Jim Harris, Ph.D. Copyright 1996 JimHarris/[AMACOM a division of American Management AssociationInternational, New York, NY.

Jim Harris, Ph.D. (Indian Rocks Beach, FL) is founder and presidentof The Jim Harris Group, specializing in the creation ofhigh-performance workplaces. He is a former executive at EckerdCorporation.

I am going to be contentious. So much of the "research" I seein the business world is nothing more than cheerleading and pep-talks.It's tiresome. Take a look at some of the questions for which stats aregiven in this research summary of the AMA:

Are the corporate values of your organization specifically written orstated?

Is information about corporate values discussed in any of the following?(Employee handbooks, Company brochures, etc.)

Honestly, what is this? Has anyone found effective ways of puttingcoorporate values in place without it coming off false? Yes. You knowwho they are? The people that treat their organizations like living,highly complex systems.

However, here are some interesting percentages:

Within your organization have you seen any of the following behaviors?Micro-management 70%

- user-contributed web content - document downloads/uploads (OSS model) * Assimilation - organization of standard materials, both easily availible and those hard to come by - lessons learned from the nations best businessesEconomy * what activities of a business help secure economic stabliity? * what encourages the evolution of the economy?

The effects of this ease of implementation, as opposed to the difficulties of launching a Gopher index or making a CD-ROM, are twofold: a huge increase in truly pointless and stupid content soaking up bandwidth; and, as a direct result, a rush to find ways to compete with all the noise through the creation of interesting work. The quality of the best work on the Web today has not happened in spite of the mass of garbage out there, but in part because of it.

Finally, Orgel's Rule, named for the evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel -- "Evolution is cleverer than you are". As with the list of the Web's obvious deficiencies above, it is easy to point out what is wrong with any evolvable system at any point in its life... However, the ability to understand what is missing at any given moment does not mean that one person or a small central group can design a better system in the long haul.

Centrally designed protocols start out strong and improve logarithmically. Evolvable protocols start out weak and improve exponentially. It's dinosaurs vs. mammals, and the mammals win every time. The Web is not the perfect hypertext protocol, just the best one that's also currently practical. Infrastructure built on evolvable protocols will always be partially incomplete, partially wrong and ultimately better designed than its competition.

As with the early Web, the 'glue' protocol subsumes the other protocols and produces a kind of weak integration, but weak integration is better than no integration at all, and it is far easier to move from weak integration to strong integration than from none to some. In 5 years, DVD, HDTV, voice-over-IP, and Java will all be able to interoperate because of some new set of protocols which, like HTTP and HTML, is going to be weak, relatively uncoordinated, imperfectly implemented and, in the end, invincible.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

We present a model in which the microstructure of trade in acommodity or asset is endogenously determined. Producers and consumersof a commodity (or buyers and sellers of an asset) who wish to tradecan choose between two competing types of intermediaries: 'middlemen'(dealer/brokers) and 'market makers' (specialists).

Market makers post publicly observable bid and ask prices, whereasthe prices quoted by different middlemen are private information thatcan only be obtained through a costly search process. We consider aninitial equilibrium where there are no market makers but there is freeentry of middlemen with heterogeneous transactions costs. Wecharacterize conditions under which entry of a single market maker canbe profitable even though it is common knowledge that all survivingmiddlemen will undercut the market maker's publicly posted bid and askprices in the post-entry equilibrium. The market maker's entry inducesthe surviving middlemen to reduce their bid-ask spreads, and as aresult, all producers and consumers who choose to participate in themarket enjoy a strict increase in their expected gains from trade. Weshow that strict Pareto improvements occur even in cases where themarket maker's entry drives all middlemen out of business, monopolizingthe intermediation of trade in the market.

"In the information-based sectors of the next economy the use orenjoyment of the information-based commodity will no longer necessarilyinvolve rivalry."

"Competition has been the standard way of keeping individualproducers from exercising power over consumers: if you don't like theterms the producer is offering, then you can just go down the street.But this use of private economic power to check private power may comeat an expensive cost if competitors spend their time duplicating oneanother's efforts and attempting to slow down technological developmentin the interest of obtaining a compatibility advantage, or creating acompatibility or usability disadvantage for the other guy."

"A good economic market is characterized by competition to limit theexercise of private economic power, by price equal to marginal cost, byreturns to investors and workers corresponding to the social valueadded of the industry, and by appropriate incentives for innovation andnew product development. These seem impossible to achieve all at oncein markets for non-rival goods--and digital goods are certainlynon-rival."

Note for OBF: we want to dissavow practices such as these:

"While consumers prefer the ability to comparison-shop and to switcheasily to another product, producers fear this ability--and haveincentives to perform subtle tweaks to their programs to make itdifficult to do so."

This is interesting, given that my observations as an employee of technical corporations and as an entrepreneur led to the OBF:

"The natural place to look is to examine how enterprises andentrepreneurs are reacting today to the coming of non-excludability,non-rivalry, and non-transparency on the electronic frontier."

Here is a good thought for the small-time service provider to consider:

"The growth of the bookstore chain put the local bookshop out ofbusiness, just as the growth of supermarkets killed the corner grocer.Not everyone considers this trend to be a victory, despite the lowerprices. A human element has been lost, and a "personal service" elementthat may have led to a better fit between purchaser and purchase hasbeen lost as well."

An excellent argument for competition:

"One of the biggest benefits of a market economy is that it providesfor sunset. When faced with competition, relatively inefficientorganizations fail to take in revenue to cover their costs, and thenthey die. Competition is thus still a virtue, whether the governingframework is one of gift-exchange or buy-and-sell--unless competitiondestroys the ability to capture significant economies of scale."

Information disclosure:

" In the absence of any clear indication of what the optimum wouldbe, the burden of proof should be on those who argue that any level ofexcludability should be mandated. This applies particularly toinformation that is not the content being sold but that is insteadabout the current state of the market itself. There is a long traditionthat information about the state of the marketplace should be as widelybroadcast as possible. We cannot see any economic arguments againstthis tradition."

The future:

"Along a number of dimensions, there is good reason to fear that theenormous economies of scale found in the production of non-rivalrouscommodities are pushing us in the direction of a winner-take-alleconomy. The long-run impact of the information revolution on thedistribution of income and wealth is something that we have not evenbegun to analyze."

"...Specifically, the model yields the result that for every dollarin consumer benefit realized from providing greater access to thecurrent stock, future consumers would be harmed at a rate of threedollars in present value terms from reduced future innovation. Weobtain this result even accounting for the stylized fact that aftergeneric entry branded drugs continue to earn significant price premiaover generic products and hence recognizing that Napsterizing does notcompletely eliminate the incentives to innovate."

The Open Business Foundation need not have a single vision thatit strives to enforce on a community or collection of communities.Doing so would most likely result in an early demise of the OBF.

I have been thinking that I needed to define the OBF in just such away. Giving well-defined boundaries, an attack plan, or sets of rulesis a normal way of proceeding in the development of groups andorganizations. This provides a pre-digested form of ideas that areeasily distributed and ingested by others.

How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Science, Business and Everyday Life

In particular, this quote stood out in my mind:

"But Paul understood that this was not enough: The message had tospread. So he used his firsthand knowledge of the social network of thefirst century's civilized world from Rome to Jerusalem to reach andconvert as many people as he could. He walked nearly 10,000 miles inthe next twelve years of his life. He did not wander randomly, however;he reached out to the biggest communities of his era, to the people andplaces in which the faith could germinate and spread most effectively.He was the first and by far the most effective salesperson ofChristianity, using theology and social networks equally effectively.So should he, or Jesus, or the message be credited for Christianity'ssuccess? Could it happen again?"

How can Open Business establish a foothold in our internetworkedworld? How can it learn from marketing and networking masters such asPaul? How can the OBF plant itself in the brains of great thinkers andleaders? How can its message be perfectly tailored to suit so manydifferent needs?

That's absurd, of course - yet it is what businesses are constantlytrying to do - be everything to everyone; garruntee consumer return.Yet using the word "Open" in such a context seems hollow at best.

The Open Business Foundation would be better serving and betterserved if it provided a forum for competing visions; a cruicible forcombining these visions; a place where views could be expressed in theknowledge that contributions were being made in a free and open space.The OBF is the combination of all the people and differing views thatoffer themselves as part of the process; it is flexible andself-modifying. The OBF is the evolution of open business ideas andimplementations; it is not a crusade.

The most important thing on my list for the OBF site right nowis the completion of the front page - the content needs to be filledin, as Google is already crawling it. Once the front page is up, I canput a link on the Adytum site for it as well.

There are a series of quotes and concepts that I am pondering, allof which relate in some way to the philosophy behind the OBF. What Ineed, though, is to refine these to the extent that even thoseunfamiliar with business and technology can instantly grasp what theOpen Business Foundation is about, simply by reading the front page.

I will paste quotes and materials as comments that I can follow up on with replies as I conside them...

EFF: Homepage - I wonder how the OBF should fit into all things Internet/Electronic. Seeing this site made me wonder about it.

Most of the people I know in the industry have ties to electronicmedia and the Internet; they are some of the most intelligent peoplethat I have met...

So how can I convince them to share their brilliance with thebusiness world? How are the business worlds and the electronic worldscurrently connected? How will that relationship change and develop inthe future?

I just came across http://boingboing.net/ and Cory Doctorow for thefirst time today. I had been reading more of Clay Shirky's stuff,thanks to David Casti for that wonderful introduction, and googled forCory when Clay mentioned him.

Reading Cory's "outboard brain" article on O'Reilly (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/01/01/cory.html),I was finally convinced of the use for personal blogs. This really iswhat I need - a place for me to put my thoughts and provide a scratchpad accessible to me and others, always ready for input andmodification.

I proceeded to search google for blog software, downloadmovebletype, and set it up. What a dream; it's even easier to getrunning than *Nuke sites.

Oh, one more note: I really liked Cory's title "Outreach Coordinator" at http://www.eff.org/ - it describes what I see myself doing in the future as well.

The new site is coming along (http://openbusinessfoundation.org). I am still running it under the old Interchange version, the one without forums. I'll need to upgrade, add forums (heavily modified - I'll use the code I developed for PBS), and then add the story publishing capability.

I have the links up, and the history (via correspondance) up. All the pages have been set with the new template, so things shouldn't look too broken.

The one problem I have been having with the story publishing code has been the IC concept of templates and components. I will need to dynamically populate the story template with components in order for this to work. I don't know if this is possible.